A Heated Debate Between Two Charismatic Geniuses: A Cardinal Fan (Jeff Lung) and a Tiger Fan (Allen Krause)

RSBS Presents: Truly Terrible Management

Alan Trammell takes a lot of heat for the Tigers’ 119-loss season in 2003. Since then, he has coached in the Majors but no one seems willing to give him a second shot at managing. And that’s probably not completely unfair. Sure, the teams he managed in 2004 and ’05 may have rebounded from the record in ’03 but they were still 20 or so games under .500. That doesn’t exactly get you very far in baseball.

However, as bad of a manager as Trammell may have been with the Tigers and no matter how much blame he deserves for that horrible 2003 season, Tram barely even rates a mention when it comes to the truly bad managers. More than that, in order to truly put his record into context, RSBS takes you on a trip through truly terribly management.

Zine El Abdine Ben AliOur journey begins with the recent events in Tunisia. Now, although the other half of RSBS only knows Tunisia as Tatooine in Star Wars, the country is a real place and it really did just drive out its leader of 30 years. Mr. Ben Ali took an interesting approach to his position as a footnote in history. Instead of contenting himself with just looting the riches of his country, he also referred to his fellow Tunisians as “terrorists” for daring to denounce him and then decided to shoot up some of them just to prove his point. In the end, it didn’t turn out so well and Mr. Ben Ali is now cooling his heels (although probably not literally) in the wonderfully tolerant Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Bud SeligCome on, did you think I could make it through a post on bad management without mentioning Selig? The guy’s record speaks for itself. From the lameass decision to have the All-Star game count for home-field advantage in the World Series to his incredibly arrogant approach to and mismanagement of the steroids era, Selig stands for everything that is wrong with baseball today. I wish I had something nice to say about the guy just so I could change things up a bit but I’d only be lying to our readers and to myself. I’m not willing to do either and so Mr. Selig once again finds himself on an RSBS list.

Mobutu Sese SekoGoing back to Africa but a little ways south of Tunisia, we find the monstrous and monstrously mismanaged country of the Belgian Congo…I mean Zaire…I mean the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the escapades of the Belgians to a never-ending civil war, the Congo has much to offer in the way of mismanagement. However, if you want to single out just one person, you’d have to go with Mobutu. And if there’s one small little tidbit that encapsulates his mismanagement of the country and its enormous wealth of natural resources, it would have to be this: Mobutu built a landing strip at his personal home near the tiny town of Gbadolite and made sure it was long enough to accommodate a Concorde. He then proceeded to charter the Concorde on a regular basis to ferry he and his family around the world.

Matt MillenAlthough Matt Millen never killed anyone directly, he was a terrible general manager. In fact, he may be the worst manager ever. Since the inception of the Superbowl the Lions have
never been a great franchise, but he still managed to take them to new lows.
And, although he was no longer around when it happened, that 0-16 season
was the real fruit of his handiwork. Sure, when compared to guys like Mobutu and Ben Ali, Millen may not seem so bad. Even in comparison to Selig and his giant ears Millen may seem tame in comparison. But it’s just a ruse. Bad management aside, the man is evil incarnate and the fact that he still has a job anywhere just proves that the greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the major networks to put him on the air.

And there you have it. I’m not saying this list is by any means exhaustive but it has been pretty exhaustively researched and vetted, just like everything else I post here. And all that aside, you know it must be true because it’s on the internet.

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7 Comments

For years I’ve been saying that the Detroit Lions are the worst franchise of all the four major professional sports. Matt Millen helped solidify that title for me with his horrible management and draft picks. The only other sports “leader” I would put on your list is Isiah Thomas. Every entity that Thomas has touched as a member of management has been a disaster.http://wrigleyregular.mlblogs.com/

Still upsets me that MLB Commish Bud Selig even started Game 5 of the 2008 World Series from the comfort of a heated suite. If he would have been stuck down there in the freezer zone like the rest of us baseball icicles, it would have been postponed by 7:45 pm in time for television to get some secondary programming in a loop.

Honestly, Trammel will be burdened by that one season for a long time. If Don Mattingly has a bad season in L A , then Trammel can ship his albatross to Hollywood. Hopefully Trammel will get another chance…..Heck Joe Girardi did after shouting at his team owner while with the fish (Marlins).

No list like this would be complete without mentioning Gary Betman of the NHL. He’s simply ruining that league. It was his brain storm that put hockey teams in places like Phoenix and Miami, instead of places like Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat. I agree how pathetic Millen was with the Lions, but when you have an owner who could care less, those things happen…
–Mikehttp://burrilltalksbaseball.mlblogs.com

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